I've been having so much fun with my sourdough starter! Thanks for yet another wonderful recipe for using it. The Sourdought Carrot cake is fabulous and I've tried at least half of your other sourdough recipes from crumpets & waffles to bread. It also made me think of the Amish Friendship bread starter which is something I've "acquired" from a friend a couple times over the year and is my husband's favorite. So a few weeks ago I decided to try it starting with KAF sourdough starter. I didn't want to have WAY too much of it in the end and didn't want to be throwing any away so did it as follows: 1/2 c. KAF sourdough starter, 1/2 c. Milk, 1/2 c. flour, 1/2 c. sugar (the usual recipes always tell you to do 1 c. each of milk, flour & sugar). I let that sit for a couple days and then fed it again two more times at about 2 day intervals. Then I used it according to the Amish Friendship bread recipes I found on the internet. There are many different versions but I just did a plain vanilla-cinnamon and a lemon-poppy seed. They were really delicious. Also, I'm a little puzzled by the idea of throwing away starter at all...whenever I feed my starter it seems like I actually have to increase it in order to have enough for whatever I'm going to make and still leave at least a cup in the crock. I've never thrown any away except for once when I went too long between feedings and had to "revive" it. Perhaps this is becuase I usually make at least a double or tripple a recipe when I make bread and need it all? I typically bake with it at least once a week so it's getting fed every 7 days or so any way. Is that often enough to feed it? Do you discard some only because when it's fed you end up with too much or is there an important "chemical" reason for discarding some? Also, I find it seems too thick at 1/2 c. water to 1 c. flour and typically add slightly more water than that, maybe 2-3 T. If I don't add the extra water it's almot too thick to stir. I do it so that I can just barely stir it all up but it's still pretty thick. I do live in a drier climate than you folks on the Eastern Seaboard so maybe that's why I seem to want to add more water. What would happen if I'm actually getting it a little too wet? Will that hurt the cultures in the starter or just affect the outcome of the recipe slightly? In general I use the amount of flour in a bread recipe as a "guideline" rather than an exact amount and just add flour until the dough is the consistency that I'm looking for. Kimberley, sounds like you're feeding your starter just fine; whatever schedule works for you and your bread is the "right" schedule. As for getting it too wet, I believe the wetter the sourdough, the more sour it can become more quickly, so it would affect the recipe slightly, both in taste, and in flour/liquid balance. The discard is simply so that you don't end up with too much; no chemical thing happening. So if you're making double/triple recipes and using more starter, then you probably wouldn't need to discard. Only discard (or share, or...) if you find yourself with too much. Bottom line - sounds like you're doing everything right. Keep up the good work! :) PJH

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